The result of the trial of W.B. Cole of Rockingham for the murder of his daughter’s former sweetheart, Bill Ormond, has brought down the condemnation of the press and people of North Carolina upon the occasional miscarriage of justice as meted out by our courts.
Sometimes the judge is at fault when criminals go unpunished; much is to be laid at the fee of lawyers who plead so earnestly when they know their client is guilty; often witnesses perjure themselves to carry their point; but in the case of the Rockingham cotton manufacturer, the blame seems to rest on the jury.
Judge Finley, who heard the case from start to finish, who heard the same witnesses the jury heard, who charged the jury after hearing both the evidence and the lawyers, says that he would have rendered a verdict different from the one rendered. The Judge knows that it is plainly a miscarriage of justice. We have yet to see the first paper that upholds the verdict, and we have not yet seen a man that thinks the verdict was just.
From the editorial page of The News Record, Marshall, N.C., Friday, Oct. 16, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92074087/1925-10-16/ed-1/seq-4/
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